Summary

Type: Empirical

Purpose: "In this paper, we present the results of a study conducted to
determine the impact of Carnegie Mellon’s Alice on the
attitudes of high school students with regards to computing. A two-week unit of instruction in Alice was developed and
presented to high school students, and pre and post surveys
were administered to assess attitudinal changes. We present
the content of the unit and analyses of the collected data" (p. 1).

Findings: "49 (70%) of the 70 students had a
positive reaction to Alice, based on their responses to the
question, “How do you feel about the Alice software?” on
the post survey. A chi-square goodness-of-fit test showed
that there is at least one statistically significant difference
among the proportions in Figure 1 (c2
5 = 24.29, p < 0.001) with the highest proportion of students selecting “Like"... Of the 70 students completing the surveys, 9 responded
“yes” to the pre survey question, “Have you used the Alice
software before?”... The data support the current wisdom that girls
enjoy using computers as much as boys... 39% (27/70) of students felt
that they had learned something about programming, 44%
(31/70) reflected no change, and 17% (12/70) felt that they
knew more before they started the project than when it was
over... Students were asked, “How likely are you to choose a career
in the computer field (e.g. programmer, network specialist,
technician, etc.)?” Figures 13 and 14 give the responses and
attitudinal shifts, respectively. Again, we observe a shift in
the positive direction, but the number of participants was too
small to draw any definitive conclusions" (p. 6, 7).

Recommendations: "We agree with Bruckman, et al. (2009) and Goode (2008)
that to improve recruitment, retention, and diversity,
improvements must be made at every stage of the pipeline.
A student attending a summer camp may become excited
about computer science and want to take additional
computing classes, but if none are offered at her high school,
or if she is the only girl enrolled, her enthusiasm is likely to
wane" (p. 8).

Methodology

Sample Size: 70

Participant Type: Students

Notes: "All school districts in north central Pennsylvania were given
a description of the project and its objectives and were
invited to participate in the project. Two school districts
accepted our offer to teach the two-week unit with a total of
5 different high school classes, 4 different subjects
(Communications/Video, Web Design, Graphics I
Communications, and Multimedia), and 3 different teachers"

Everyday Computing a joint research project between The University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Chapmpaign
and funded by the National Science Foundation.
Copyright EverydayComputing.org, 2016